Jumping on points or ‘soft reboots’ have become something of a common feature of Doctor Who. Its book and audio ranges, in particular, are so expansive that exploring them can seem daunting to many fans. The creatives behin the ranges, keen to keep people buying their product, often release stories which allow fans to dip their toe into a range without the need to have read or listened to a series of 20 odd other stories beforehand.

The BBC Books 8th Doctor range had become involved in an evermore complicated story arc involving the premature death of the 3rd Doctor, a companion metamorphosing into a TARDIS, a Gallifreyan voodoo death cult and a third, far more ruthless, incarnation of Romana.

The arc culminated in the epic The Ancestor Cell and then ended that story with an amnesiac Doctor ending up on Earth with a dead TARDIS.

Justin Richard’s The Burning launches the new, far less involved story arc – often referred to as the ‘Earth arc’ which sees the 8th Doctor arrive in late19th Century England and then spend the next few books travelling the slow path through 20th Century history.

Richards always seems very at home in this time period. The recent The Banquo Legacy, co-written by Richards, was also set here. Returning here immediately creates a comfortable atmosphere which Richards uses to his advantage to then twist into a horrific nightmare.

It’s a very simple story. A strange fiery alien entity has a man called Nepath in its thrall and is using his love for his dead sister to infect people in and around Middletown. The Doctor, with the aid of the local vicar, thwarts his plan.

The story moves between a select few locations: the mine where the entity originates, the moorland around it and Middletown. With a straightforward plot and few locations, it falls to a well-drawn guest cast – and extremely engaging and likeable 8th Doctor – to drive the story and maintain interest.

The 8th Doctor, excised of all the trauma built up in the previous novels, is the joyous, adventurous incarnation first seen in the TV Movie. His amnesia isn’t overplayed, thankfully, and his rapport with Reverend Stobbold is delighful. Stobbold himself is a great one-off companion for the course of this book. The Doctor is well-matched by an effective villain in Nepath. The fire elemental manipulating him and killing the locals is a little nebulous so a human mouthpiece is needed to anchor the threat a little more tangibly. The playful Doctor gives way at the climax to a steely, merciless approach which strongly echoes the end of The Family of Blood, with the Doctor condemning Nepath to a watery grave. It’s a sudden shock which reminds the reader that, as much as this is the Doctor we know, his amnesia (and subconscious ramifications of the previous novels’ events) may have had a slightly hardening influence on him.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I sometimes struggle with Justin Richards’ Doctor Who novels. The more I read of his work (and there’s quite a lot of it!) the more I’m finding his books falling into definite like or dislike categories. I’ve really enjoyed novels such as Demontage, The Banquo Legacy and The Burning whereas been thoroughly bored by others such as Dreams of Empire, Option Lock and The Deviant Strain. I definitely feel his ‘period’ books are stronger particularly those set in the 19th century.There’s not a huge amount more to say about this novel as it is a very straightforward story with a small, yet well-written cast of characters and limited but evocative locations. It really does feel like a breath of fresh air after the increasingly convoluted story arc preceding it and I look forward to the rest of the Doctor’s time stranded on Earth.